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Shri Mahavir Jain Aradhana Kendra
740
www.kobatirth.org
Acharya Shri Kailashsagarsuri Gyanmandir
Atman and Mokşa
differentiation from the individual soul that knows it; but when the two become perfectly identical all distinction is lost and nothing can be said about it. It simply remains indescribable. Ramakṛṣṇa says that after the vision of the Brahman a man becomes silent. He reasons about it as long as he has not realized It. If you heat butter in a pan on the stove, it makes a sizzling sound as long as the water it contains has not dried up. But when no trace of water is left the clarified butter makes no sound. If you put an uncooked cake of flour in that butter it sizzles again. But after the cake is cooked all sound stops. Just so, a man established in samadhi comes down to the relative plane of consciousness in order to teach others, and then he talks about God..... The bee buzzes as long as it is not sitting on a flower. It becomes silent when it begins to sip the honey.1
For Private And Personal
The Brahman is attributeless (nirguna) in its transcendental aspect but it becomes possessed of attributes (saguna) when it operates with its power and manifests itself in its active form. The God as the Absolute or the nirguna Brahman is not different from the Personal God. God the Absolute and God the personal are one and the same. A belief in the one implies a belief in the other. Fire cannot be thought of apart from its burning power; nor can its burning power be thought of apart from it. Again the sun's rays cannot be thought of apart from the sun, nor the sun, apart from its rays. You cannot think of the whiteness of milk apart from milk, nor
1 Nikhilananda Swami: The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, p. 29.
